Tuesday, 26 August 2008

"Mamma, vad är ... på engelska"?

= "Mummy, what's ... in English?"

I get this question hundreds of times daily, with variations. Of course it depends what we are talking about, or which language is being spoken at the time. Lucas is very conscious at the moment about his two languages and wants to know ALL the words in both languages ALL the time.

It's so interesting to follow the kids' linguistic development, especially since I have studied both linguistics and bilingualism at the University, and languages is one of my passions. It's very clear that Lucas is in a vocabulary building stage at the moment, and all of our conversations are full of "how do you say this and how do you say that"- episodes.

He is very, very good at switching between the languages, and he knows exactly who speaks what. In Denmark he spoke English to the people we (mostly) spoke English to (Nathan's friends) and Swedish to the people we (well, I) spoke Swedish to. But he has also figured out that most (if not all) people do speak English, so that's always the fail safe.

Linnea has just started switching, at the moment it's mostly just with Nathan and I. For the rest of the people, it's just about making herself understood, with whatever words or language she has at the moment. Although, she spoke more Swedish (with English mixed in) while we were in Sweden, and now it's more English with Swedish mixed in. One thing is for sure though, she is a chatterbox, in both languages!

Watson Family

Watson Family

Just the two of us

The kids

The dogs

Where is Brunei?

The Bruneian flag

Short facts

Brunei covers an area of 5,765 km2. (That is just slightly bigger than Vänern or twice the size of the island Fyn.)Brunei has approximately 409,000 inhabitants.Brunei's currency is BND (Brunei Dollar), $10 = appr. €6,20/46,50DKK/54SEK/£5 (as of 18.12.12)Brunei's official language is malay and the capital is Bandar Seri Begawan.